


The North Star

by rebel_diamond



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, fosterson, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2763086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebel_diamond/pseuds/rebel_diamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane and Thor’s first Christmas/Hanukkah together. Holiday fluff. Post-TDW</p>
            </blockquote>





	The North Star

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Shotgun_Betty for working on this with me.

“Have a holly jolly Christmas,” Thor’s voice boomed warmly along with the radio from the passenger side. It was two weeks into December and he already knew the words to most of the holiday songs and his deep baritone complimented the majority of them. Jane glanced over at him from behind the wheel, holding in a bubble of laughter. His curiosity in Earth customs, peaked three years ago when he first crashed to Earth, had only blossomed since he’d returned after the Battle of Greenwich and stayed. Halloween had amused him, especially when mini Iron Mans and Captain Americas had shown up at the door. Thanksgiving was when he had felt most at home on Midgard because the gathering of people together to eat vast quantities of food reminded him of meals on Asgard. But Christmas had captured his attention the most thus far. Even though they were spending this holiday alone in Puente Antiguo, he was eager to participate in all of the customs. So when Jane had explained the tradition of getting a Christmas tree, he enthusiastically led their trip to town. His childlike excitement was catching. Usually she worked through all the major holidays but now she found herself taking part in rituals for the first time in years. He caught her staring at him and smiled sheepishly, “I like your songs of Christmas,” he shrugged.  
  
“There’s celebration songs on Asgard,” she offered, remembering them from her short visit there, dire as it may have been.  
  
“Aye,” he replied. “Equally as rousing, but slightly more …” he searched for the right word.  
  
“Bloodthirsty?” Jane offered brightly.  
  
Thor laughed, nodding, “Possibly,” he grinned at her. He nodded to the town appearing in the distance, “So, we are on our way to select our Christmas tree. Once we have that then the Festival of Lights can begin.”  
  
“That’s two different things,” Jane clarified, thinking of the menorah that was currently sitting on the small kitchen table in the trailer. “My father was Jewish, my mother’s Christian, but neither of them were religious. So we celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas, neither particularly well. We’d eat potato pancakes and doughnuts while decorating the Christmas tree after we’d lit the eighth candle on the menorah. So I guess I had the best of both worlds.” She thought for a moment. “That seems to be a characteristic of mine,” she grinned at him.  
  
“It is your heritage, Jane.” Thor told her seriously, turning to her and placing his hand on her arm, “It’s important for us to light this menorah and this tree to honor your ancestors,” his eyes softened. “For it was they that brought you to me.”  
  
Jane smiled at him wistfully. When her father had died years ago, the holiday revelry seemed to go with him. Her dad had been the one to pull the decoration boxes out of the attic and the first to suggest baking cookies. Both Jane and her mom, an academic herself, often traveled for their work and these traditions seemed to be the first to be sacrificed. Just like her father, Thor could find the romance and adventure in anything. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way before. But what about your ancestors? What does Asgard do this time of year?”

Thor brightened, “In Asgard we observe the Yuletide, your Winter Solstice. It is a celebration that lasts three days and three nights,” he announced proudly.    
  
Jane’s brow furrowed, “What in the world can you do for three days and three nights?”  
  
“Drink,” they both answered.  
  
Thor laughed heartily, “I fear I may have represented my people inaccurately.”  
  
Jane beamed, shaking her head, “No, no, it sounds like great fun.”  
  
“It is,” he assured her. “We rejoice with feasting, banquets, games and song. We wish for a good new year, honor the dead, and give thanks to the ancestral Mothers who will guide us through the time of darkness and into the new Sun cycle.”  
  
She reach across the seat and entwined her hand in his, “It sounds beautiful,” she told him truthfully.  
  
As they entered the town, Jane admired the luminarias that lined the streets of Puente Antiguo. Wreaths hung in all the windows of Isabela's Diner. And hundreds of twinkling lights outlined the general store, the pizza shop, and all the other businesses that stretched down the road.  
  
“Are you sorry we are spending the holidays here and not with family and friends?” he asked. While they’ve been primarily living in Puente Antiguo for months, they’d returned to London for Halloween and Thanksgiving, spending time with Darcy, Erik, Ian, and even Jane’s mother. But the constant buzzing of people had exhausted them and they mutually agreed to leave the congested communal apartment and city behind for a while. Here they were creating their own traditions, near the place where they had began.  
  
“No,” she answered honestly. “I’m very happy we’re here.”  
  
Thor looked happy and relieved beside her. “Perhaps one day I can take you back to Asgard in time for Yule.”  
  
“I would love that,” Jane said enthusiastically. The idea of laying her eyes on Asgard and all of its wonders again, this time without a deadly poison flowing through her system, made her brain salivate. She could learn all of his native traditions in the same sweet, dedicated manner he was learning hers. “There’s still another week until the Winter Solstice,” she suggested. “We can still make it back to Asgard in time, if you want to go.”  
  
Thor relaxed, putting his arm around the back of Jane’s seat, absentmindedly playing with the ends of her hair. He shook his head, looking out the window, “No,” he responded confidently, “I want to stay right here.”  
  
Jane pulled the truck up to the Christmas tree lot that had been constructed in the middle of town. As they got out of the car a few people called out hello to them by name. Thor raised his arm in greeting. In their plaid flannel and jeans, Jane and Thor could be mistaken for any other residents of Puente Antiguo. After he had become famous for the Battle of New York and the Battle of Greenwich, the townspeople had become rather protective of him … he was their hero first, after all. When word had spread that they’d returned to the mobile home on the outskirts of town after a three year absence, Izzy had delivered coffee right to their door as a welcome home gift. And if the media or any obsessed fans came sniffing around looking for them, Jake, Pete and the other tavern regulars Thor had made drinking companions of, saw that the visit was as short and unpleasant as possible.  
  
The thin middle-aged man in the Santa hat who ran the lot wasn’t a local. He came into town hauling his trees every season, living out of a teardrop trailer, before disappearing back up north. Jane paused as she entered the lot, breathing in the familiar smell of pine needles. “Okay,” she told Thor, who was bouncing on his toes of his boots beside her, “pick any one you want.” They wandered the lot for a while, weaving their way through trees of every shape and size. Thor sized up each one he came to, judging it at length before inevitably finding it wanting.  
  
Jane circled back around to one of the first trees that had caught her eye. Hands dug in her vest pockets, she looked up at the sturdy, full spruce, “How about this one?” she called to him.  
  
Thor came over and looked down at the same tree, “Puny,” he dismissed. In spite of Jane’s surprised expression, he immediately turned on his heels in search of a better option. A few minutes later he found it. “Now this,” he announced, sauntering up to the largest tree in the lot, the only one that was taller than him, “is a Christmas tree.” The Douglas fir was obviously brought to lure customers into the lot, only to scare them with the price tag and force them to buy another.    
  
The owner wandered up behind them. “Lemme grab some guys to help you get it onto the truck,” he told them, eager to make the big sale before Jane could contradict him, since Thor was obviously sold on it. She didn’t blame the lot guy. She wouldn’t want to haul that monstrous thing back to where it came from either.    
  
“Thank you,” Thor said, digging the money out of his pocket and slapping it into the palm of the man, “but that will not be necessary.” He couched down, his hands spanning the base of the tree, and threw it over his shoulder like a lumberjack carrying an ax.  
  
The man looked like he’d just swallowed his gum. Jane, not able to contain her laughter, shrugged her shoulders at him and followed Thor to the truck, where he’d proudly tossed the tree onto the truck bed and was standing back, admiring it. The people of Puente Antiguo were so used to Thor’s antics, it was great fun when someone witnessed his strength for the first time. Jane thanked him again and Thor gave the man a friendly wave, holding out his other hand to Jane. She grabbed it and they left the stunned lot Santa to jog across the street to Isabela's Diner. They were doing some Christmas shopping and getting dinner while they were in town and Izzy had promised to sell her a couple bags of coffee to send to Darcy.

  
When they arrived home at dusk, Jane got out and stood next to the truck, taking a moment to admire their home. They’d bought and strung white Christmas lights across the roof and down around the door and windows. She had turned the lights on when they left so they could see the full effect when they drove up. It reminded her of the North Star. Home. Their home. Thor lifted the tree off the truck bed, balancing it across his shoulders behind his head like it weighed nothing, and strolled up next to her, shaking the loose strands of hair out of his face. The life they were just beginning to build together shone before them. Jane impulsively stood on tiptoes and caught his mouth with hers, kissing him tenderly. When she pulled away, the corners of his blue eyes crinkled as he grinned down at her. He would have gathered her in his arms if he could.  
  
Jane looked at the tree he was holding up with his forearms, then at their trailer, and back to the tree again. They and the tree he had picked couldn’t possibly both fit inside. They spent most of their time outside anyway, so she suggested they place it over by the firepit they often gathered around, then immediately realized the fault in her plan.  
  
“We forgot a tree stand,” Jane frowned.  
  
Thor thought for a moment. He held up a finger, bent over to prop up the tree next to the door, and disappeared into the motorhome. He reappeared moments later, Mjonir in hand. Jane appreciated the thoughtful retrieval. Calling it to his hand probably would have ripped a hole through their wall.  
  
He strode to the spot Jane had suggested, brought the hammer over his head and down onto the ground in front of him, cracking a hole in the desert. Jane laughed in astonishment. No matter how many times she’d seen him use Mjonir, it still fascinated her. Strutting back over to the tree, her reaction was not lost on him and he winked at her cockily, pleased with his cleverness. He lifted the fir over his head and planted it strongly into the ground, kicking the earth had had disturbed around the tree to hold it in place.  
  
Thor brushed his hands together, looking to Jane, “Will that do?”  
  
Jane crossed her arms and tried not to look too impressed, “Very well.”  
  
While he straightened the tree Jane dug around in the trailer and brought out a beat up box she’d had shipped to New Mexico after she saw the interest he was showing in Midgard holiday traditions. It held a few of her family’s decorations, mostly homemade stuff constructed out of popsicle sticks and clay molds painted in school art classes.  
  
Jane set it on the ground between them and dug out a string of white lights while Thor dragged over an extra generator. She handed one end of the lights to Thor and he strung the top while she strung the bottom. The act of trimming the tree had particularly captured his imagination, he’d been looking at pictures of decorated trees online all week. As a prince of Asgard, if there was any sort of adornment of the palace, it surely hadn’t been done by him. Thor rifled through the rest of the box and plucked out an ornament. The red and gold felt gingerbread house had a circle cut away from the middle, framing a photograph of a smiling little girl with dark hair and brown eyes. “Is this you, Jane?”  
  
She leaned over, “Yep, I think I was three there.”  
  
Thor studied it a while longer before reverently placing it as the first ornament on their tree. They continued hanging ornaments made of yarn and buttons while Jane regaled him with family stories they reminded her of. Shortly, she looked down into the almost empty box then up, up at their tree, “I don’t think this is going to be enough ornaments to fill this whole tree.”  
  
Thor stood from where he was hanging a tiny wooden rocking horse on a low branch, “I have an idea for that as well.” The daylight was fading so Jane lit a fire and dragged over a couple lawn chairs while she waited. When he returned it was with a box of his own and two mugs of hot chocolate. He handed the drinks to Jane and dropped the box with a loud pang at his feet. Jane peeked in to see it filled with pieces of scrap metal left over from some of her projects. She watched him curiously as he grabbed a few pieces and sat over the flame, heating and bending them into shapes. She joined him at the fire and into the night they sipped at their cups while he fashioned metal hearts, candy canes, and their initials. When they cooled she added them to the tree and at last, after the branches were bursting with color and texture, they stood up and walked back a few meters to admire their work. Jane leaned back against his chest and he enveloped her in his arms. The tree twinkled back at them, the lights glistening off the metal ornaments in the darkness.  
  
Something was off though. It didn’t look quite complete. Jane tilted her head, “We don’t have a star for the top.”  
  
“On the contrary,” he tightened his arms around her, placing a slow kiss beneath her ear. Her eyes followed his to the sky, “we have all the stars of the universe to illuminate our tree,” he explained proudly. He was right. It was perfect. It was theirs. “Happy Christmas, Jane,” he whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> I based my information about Yule from this article: http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/?page_id=397


End file.
